


Crepuscule

by JudeAraya



Category: Glee
Genre: AU, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Reversebang, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeAraya/pseuds/JudeAraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My contribution to the 2015 Klaine Reversebang.</p><p> </p><p>Once, Blaine Anderson was a boy; now, he's a creature of dark needs who emotionally preys upon those who come too close to his lake. When Kurt Hummel comes to his shores at the end of his rope, all Blaine can think is how *hungry* he is. He rescues Kurt intent on breaking him down; instead he finds himself in love and  wishing he could have saved himself.<br/><a href="http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/JudeAraya/media/KRB_02_03_Judearaya_Big_zpsl1oy6i1r.png.html"></a><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Crepuscule

**Author's Note:**

> First, thank you [Marie](freakingpotter.tumblr.com) for the absolutely stunning art and incredible patience with me.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks too to [Pene](damnpene.tumblr.com) for hand holding and beta and cheerleading, as well as [Riah](lurkdusoleil.tumblr.com).  
>  **Everyone, please mind the warnings below.** If you have questions, please contact me. This story is very dark at the beginning but it does contain positive themes and love. 
> 
> Warning for: explicit suicide attempt, offscreen suicide, non con (dreamed. I put dubcon in the tags bc this these parts take place in dreams but that implies lack of consent), one instance of vomiting, and one of humiliation.

There are things Blaine remembers enjoying. Happiness is a fragment, an echo. He doesn’t miss it, but when he sees the small ones come to the lake he feels a faint, visceral tug.

Blaine doesn’t mind that. He’s a creature of darker needs now -- has been since the moment he came to on this very beach with no memory of who he had been. Only that once, he was a boy. He’s touched many in his time here. They feed the constant hunger he has for the edge of pain he brings to pleasure. 

Underwater, deep in the darkest recess of this lake, the near silence is delicious. The vibration of true life is faint enough for him to tune out. The lack of sunlight and the currents are perfect. Here he closes his eyes and reaches with his mind. Here he visits. He creeps and pushes himself into their dreams. Touches them in various forms. He knows he’s painfully desirable. Animal and human, terrible in false tenderness. Hungry and hunger. 

He’s what they need in the spaces most can’t bear knowing. Blaine knows every fantasy, every buried desire. The most shocking ones that can’t be helped. Blaine most lovest manipulating when his seduction is met with reticence, then thrilling acquiescence. The boys who come to accept it -- who eventually manage to integrate shameful desires into their lives -- become less interesting. Those he abandons. 

Time means little to Blaine now. It hasn’t since he surrendered himself to these waters. Deep in the shadowed forest, not many toys come to the water. He’ll stay with one or two for what might seem long years to them. While their bodies wax from youth, from times of sexual awakening through complete maturation. 

But they do age, and in time something else, delicious and nubile, comes along. 

~*~ 

What calls him first is the pain. From the velvet silt bottom and lightless murk, tangled in the deep green of the water weeds, Blaine feels it pierce him into awareness. It runs like electric sparks through him. He smiles and begins his ascent. 

From behind his rocks, he spots a boy – the most ethereal, beautiful boy – at the water’s edge. He’s very still, and when the wind picks up, whipping the end of a silken scarf and ruffling his hair, he doesn’t move. 

Blaine bites back a smile. This boy is so new. His pain washes over Blaine; it’s complex, notes of despair and confusion, agonized loneliness and fear that Blaine can almost taste. Blaine wants to swim to that shore and take the boy into his arms. To bite kisses on those virgin lips, to whisper something frightening and arousing into his ear. 

Blaine takes care in how he appears to people tangibly. Revealed as himself, he knows they’re helpless; his eyes have the power to hold them unmoving. It’s more fun to come to them unseen, to touch their bodies under the water and trace pieces of his soul onto their skin. They don’t know that they leave carrying a shadow of his self deeply curled in the recess of their minds. The dark water suddenly seems menacing and the woods seem deeper, heavy with secrets. They feel faintly aroused and somehow threatened. 

The boy stays until near dark. He doesn’t touch the water, but contemplates it. He turns at last and disappears into the gloaming light filtering through the trees. Blaine swallows disappointment, but knows that’s immediate, impatient desire. This boy will be back. Blaine can taste it. 

~*~ 

The boy often comes alone watch the water. Blaine reads his indecision, the pull of the water and a calling to the constant darkness. As if that would be the right balm, as if it might end his pain. He always leaves at sunset. 

Other times he comes with the children. This is the only time Blaine senses his joy or happiness. It’s faint and boring, but the way it lights the boy’s face in smiles is interesting because it transforms something beautiful into something exquisite. 

~*~

It’s a turbulent day, dark clouds turgid and unstable. The trees toss and dance in confused winds, the edge of cold whistles through the burgeoning not quite summer heat of May. Blaine’s been laying on his shore, anticipating a good storm, ready for the lighting. He doesn’t need to see the boy coming because his intention and pain announce themselves. Blaine slithers into the water with a splash that’s easily lost in a sudden rumble of thunder. The boy emerges slowly, lovely hands fisted and chin high, tears staining pale white cheeks. He doesn’t brush them away. 

The boy sits on the sand, ignoring the wind as it picks up and pelts the tiny granules against his skin. From his pocket he takes an orange bottle and meticulously counts pills into his palm. He tosses the bottle on the sand and toes his shoes off; it’s an action that makes Blaine laugh. What a detail to attend to on the edge of this choice. He walks into the water and scoops it up, drinks down the pills in two fistfuls, gagging on the taste. He kneels slowly then sits back on his heels. It starts to rain; it’s very cold. Lightning steals the colors from the trees as it cracks nearby, creating a momentary chiaroscuro tableau. Blaine blinks his eyes and when the skies open with rattling crash of thunder, and begins to laugh. 

The boy is swaying with the pushing waters. His shoulders shake – whether from cold or from the sobs punching through his chest, Blaine can’t be sure. 

Blaine swims closer, near the shore, confident that he won’t be seen. It’s almost a pity that he won’t let this happen, because this boy’s agony is so terribly beautiful; Blaine could feed on the echo of this for days. 

He’s hungry for something else though. 

The boys eyes are starting to flutter more slowly; he takes a few deep breaths, stands on unsteady feet and walks further into the water. Eventually he has to push off the sandy bottom to swim toward the center of the lake. It’ll take a little longer than he anticipated, Blaine knows. Despite intentions, the human drive to keep itself alive is far stronger than even the most desperate think it will be. 

Blaine swims closer to him, winding in loops and ducking under the water. The boy fights it for a moment, limbs trying in a fluttering panic to keep himself afloat before exhaustion hits and he begins to sink. 

Blaine doesn’t let him get too far before catching him by the neck and pulling him close. The currents buffet them, but none of that matters. Blaine runs a finger down the bridge of his nose. He leans in and sucks a kiss to his cheek, bites his jaw just to feel the edge of flesh between his teeth, and then takes his lips. He kisses a spark into him, and then the breath of air, and then pulls him to the surface. 

~*~ 

Kurt wakes up with almost dried clothes plastered to his body. Everything is a painfully bright blur when Kurt’s eyes begin to pry themselves open. They’re sticking and gritty, incredibly heavy. 

_What’s--?_

He rolls over and throws up: water and the bitter residue of pills, bile and shame. Without the strength to even wipe his mouth, Kurt rests his forehead on his arm and struggles to think through the terrible, sickening blur careening in his skull. After a few ragged breaths, he vomits again, groaning as already sore abdominal muscles cramp harder to rid themselves of the last of the poisons he’s put in his body. 

He rolls onto his back; the sky is easter blue, cloudless. Lovely. Nothing like the dark skies and gunmetal, turbulent water he’d given into earlier. Kurt gasps and sits up, crying out as his muscles protest. His throat is raw and his ears ring oddly. It almost sounds like…chimes, hollow on the wind. There’s nothing that he can see to pinpoint the noise, not even a bird or two swooping over the now flat waters of the lake. The sun faces him on its slow slide down toward the treetops opposite of him. In the wake of the storm, the heat thickens the damp air. Despite the soupy humidity, his clothes are dry, as is his crusted mess of hair. Everything hurts, from his thin onion paper skin to his clenching heart. 

_Why am I still here?_

It’s hard, with everything so muddled and aching, to tell if he’s happy or upset. 

Regardless, he feels defeated. And gross. He struggles to stand and examines himself. There’s no way he’ll get past his aunt like this – his clothes are ruined and vomit stained. He walks carefully toward the water to rinse his face and run water through his hair, tousling it so it looks…well not better exactly, but less like he’s almost drowned. He tries to clean off his clothes. It’s the best he can do. The wind kicks up for a second and that sound, like laughing bells, reaches him again. Despite the comparison, there’s nothing charming or beautiful about it. Fear fizzes in his stomach. This place – there’s something not right about it. Kurt’s felt it from the start; had attributed it to the reason he was compelled to come so often, that feeling that this was the place, the solution to his pain. 

It doesn’t feel that way at all right now. Menace lingers in the air; he can almost taste it. It chills him. His fingertips are numb and despite the heat he’s shivering. 

Kurt has no idea how he’ll get into the house looking like he does, but he’s not waiting here to make his plan. Despite how sore and heavy his body feels, and the burn of acid and water in his lungs, Kurt runs into the woods, chased by a fear that feels, for once, like a force outside his own body. 

~*~ 

In bed that night, Kurt closes his eyes and knows that what comes next is inescapable. He’s managed to avoid thinking about what he’d done all through sneaking into the house, showering and eating with his aunt and cousins. He’d plastered a fake smile on – the one he’s been wearing in the weeks since he’s come here, so familiar to them, something they’d never know isn’t true. It’s the only smile they’ve seen on him. 

He answers questions easily; for the first time Kurt really understands that in some hazy future he can’t dare to hope for, he really could be an actor. Aunt Ruth reminds him that he has school work to do. His cousin Charlie winces. Being homeschooled seems like the worst punishment to Charlie – all work but none of the fun social time with friends to mitigate it. Kurt doesn’t have to explain that school for him was a nightmare from start to finish in the last year. Kurt’s never minded learning. It’s everything else that broke him down. 

At least here he has his own room. Aunt Ruth had helped him convert it from a guest room into something that would feel personal and homey. His father had come with Carol and with forced cheer they’d all hung Kurt’s photo prints and made his bed with his comforter. Kurt had done his best to pretend to care by putting his clothes away as meticulously as he might keep them at home. 

His first night there he’d snuck to the landing at the stairs. In this house it was easy to hear conversation from the kitchen. Eyes closes to keep the burning threat of tears at bay, he’d gripped the banister hard enough to hurt his fingers and listened to his father speak through his own tears. Kurt had never seen or heard his father cry like that, not even after his mother’s death. Probably because like Kurt, he’d stolen his grief away for the most private moments. 

“I don’t know about this Ruth. I don’t think I can leave--” 

“Burt,” Carol interrupted. “I know this is hard, but we know this might be best for him.” 

“How can you say that?” A thump followed the words. Kurt could imagine him, cap over his brow, heavy fist hitting the table. “Leavin’ my son when all of this has happened?” 

“He’ll be safe here Burt,” Aunt Ruth said. “I wish we could all afford to send him to that private school. You know that Josh and I will help you pay when we can. But we can’t right now. I’ll be here, and I can get him through the school year teaching him.” 

Kurt bit the inside of his lip hard enough to draw blood and put his head on his knees. Here he’d be safe. Everything in his aunt’s house was comforting. He’s always loved it here, it’s true. Homeschooling, even if only to get him through his junior year until they could make some sort of alternate plan, was enticing. But being without his father…even Carol and Finn…they hadn’t even left and Kurt was already painfully homesick for them. 

There had been a seed though, planted the day Karofsky had stared him down at his locker, taken his cake topper and left Kurt with the absolute certainty that one day he would hurt Kurt in the worst way, that had been slowly growing. Sewing patchworks of moments together after that, Kurt created a narrative of the last year that left him with the shaky feeling that there was really only one solution. His father was suffering so much along with him, and Kurt’s own pain was crushing. It was so hard to breathe through his constant fear, through the knowledge that it really wasn’t ever going to get better. 

That was the worst. The hopelessness. The thread that bound his story was this: nothing would ever really get better. His circumstances might change, but at the end of the day, Kurt would always be Kurt. Kurt who would never quite fit into this world. He was made for a different place. He had no idea where that was, but it wasn’t here. 

Kurt didn’t want to hurt anyone; the thought of causing his father more pain was like knives. But he’d watched his father heal from the loss of his mother. Watched him make a new life, start a new family. Eventually, his father would heal. And without Kurt’s pain always following them around, dragging at them all, he’d have a real chance at happiness, right? 

When Burt and Carol left, Kurt put on the most hopeful face he could. He nodded assurances and agreed that this might be his best chance for the time being. Finishing out his school year tucked away in this beautiful place. His father would visit and Kurt would heal. 

They’d find a long term solution. 

“I’ll be okay Dad,” Kurt said. He remembers tucking his face into the crook of his father’s neck and taking in his smell. It was okay here to cry – it would be expected – and so he did. But he put on his Hummel face – unbeaten, sure – and told his father he knew this was for the best. 

His plans weren’t cemented then but they did exist and Kurt hadn’t shaken them. Every day they became clearer, an option that seemed more and more desirable and right. Kurt didn’t know when or how it might happen, but just in case he did it before his father would be back, Kurt kissed his father’s cheek and hugged him again as hard as he could, trying to memorize everything about his father. 

Aunt Ruth let him retreat to his room right after dinner, only coming in before she went to bed to give him one more hug. She brought up a mug of warm milk and he indulged her by letting her sit on the bed and pet his hair like she had when he was a child. He knew it was as much for her own comfort as for his. The milk was different – she used cardamom – but familiar, which did help with the longing for his home and his room and his dad. 

Right now, his comforter smells familiar. It’s soft and warm and when he tucks it over his head, it’s a cocoon that erases almost all external sensory input. His arms ache. His legs too. Kurt curls on his side and before he knows it’s happening, hard, barking sobs crest in his lungs. He presses a fist to his mouth to try to keep the noise down. He’d been so sure that ending everything was the solution. But the father he is from what had happened, the clearer his memories are. And the one that is clearest, the one that means the most and is the most honest, is the certainty that he couldn’t do it after all. Just before he’d gone under he’d thought of his father and truly understood the incredible selfishness of his actions. 

The realization came too late. 

Only it didn’t, because somehow he’s here now, in his own bed, splintering from a grief he doesn’t even understand. Kurt understands now that suicide isn’t a solution. But he also knows that the rest of his life stretches bleak and unending before him. . 

~*~ 

That night, Blaine closes his eyes and lets himself in. The boy’s dreams are messy and jumbled. His father, family. People that might be friends are all flickering images and names; everything is grief stricken and guilty. That alone is all Blaine feeds on, because the rest is nothing but recollection of the mundanity of a simple human’s life. 

This one needs time, apparently. 

Blaine comes back to himself with a sigh. He’s hungry and bored and aching. All he has now are memories too. Only his are so, so much more interesting. 

~*~ 

Kurt does a remarkable job maintaining his facade in the coming weeks. The only person who probes for the true depth of his answers is his father. Kurt wouldn’t want to avoid the nightly phone calls, but in the days after his stunningly stupid decision – which he can now see as – it’s very hard for him not just to confess. If everything he’d done thus far is to protect his father from pain, there’s no way he can tell his father how close he came to losing his only son. 

“I know you aren’t okay Kurt. Don’t lie to me. We have an agreement, it’s how we work.” 

“I’m not lying Dad,” Kurt insists. 

“You’re not telling me everything. I can tell. You never could lie to me.” 

Which is slightly untrue, but Kurt doesn’t mention that. Keeping things from his Dad had become an art form when he was younger. It’s only in the face of direct questions that Kurt’s never been able to lie. They’ve always had an understanding as well: mostly Kurt doesn’t try to lie to him, because they trust each other. 

“It’s just hard Dad,” Kurt admits. His voice is soft; he doesn’t want anyone else to hear him. “I miss you guys. And my friends.” 

“I’m sorry bud,” his father says. His sigh hurts Kurt. 

“It’s okay. I know this is best.” 

“Kurt, I _promise_ you, we’ll figure something out. We’ve been saving like crazy, and Aunt Ruth has too. Come next school year we can probably get you to that fancy school.” 

Kurt closes his eyes. A safe place, a school with a no bullying policy; a place far from Karofsky – these are the things he must have in order to come home. And yet, despite how horrible things were at McKinley, Kurt will always long for it. For Glee and the home they made there, a temporary shelter from terribly loneliness. 

But those memories are only proof that happiness and refuge are temporary. Still, there’s nothing to do but go on. The warmth of his father’s voice over the line is enough to convince of that alone. 

~*~

It’s a week later that Blaine slithers into Kurt’s mind and finds it turbulent with the memory of the lake and what he’d done. Far away, in his own body, Blaine smiles and runs his hands down his own body. Perfect. 

Kurt’s dreaming of waking on the sand. Of the pain in his body, but also as he pulls himself together, of that indescribable fear that had pushed him from the lake. 

Only this time, Blaine uses his abilities to hold Kurt there. Unseen, he imagines himself running cold fingers up the inseam of Kurt’s wet jeans, ankle to groin. Kurt shivers and hugs himself. Tears stand out in his eyes. His heart is beating rabbit fast. 

Manipulating boys in dreams is beautifully easy. Kurt’s struggles, formed by his conscious ideas of what is right and wrong, of safe feelings and responses mean nothing here. Nothing with Blaine curled tight in his subconscious. 

Kurt’s frozen at the edge of the water, dazed and utterly confused by his body’s sudden response to nothing at all. Terror courses through him even as pleasure, sharp edged and horrible, does as well. Blaine cups him, strokes the very impressive bulge through his jeans. He puts his mouth there, over the thick denim, and bites hard. 

Kurt slips from his dream so fast it’s startling. But Blaine knows what that means; he starts laughing, touching himself frantically, coming into the deep waters of his home. 

~*~

For a full week Kurt wakes like this, already coming, coated in shame. The dreams haunt him every moment of the day. They sit like punishment in his chest. Perhaps they are. Kurt does deserve the most disgusting shame and self loathing; these dreams, getting off to his own near death, must be his subconscious way of punishing himself. 

Despite feeling like he deserves this, the dreams are disturbing enough that Kurt begins to try anything he can do change the track of his dreams. 

He hasn’t allowed himself fantasy in a very long time. He’s had dreams, sure. He’s jerked off when the need felt too big to control. Always quickly, always as mechanically and blankly as possible. His own sexuality – not his identity, but his desires – have felt dangerous, especially after Karofsky’s kiss. 

It’s challenging, to say the least, to let himself drift in bed. To force himself to recall his simple desires for a kiss. For the innocent touch of a finger. Someone to hold his hand, to brush his hair off his forehead and look into his eyes. Of some man, somewhere, who might one day look at Kurt with so much love that Kurt could trust him with these other things – corporeal, frantic desire. An aching to be touched. A call to pleasure that would involve nudity – of many kinds – with another person. 

Kurt’s sure that he can condition his mind to kinder dreams if he spends enough time thinking about them as he falls asleep. 

~*~ 

Human desires are Blaine’s buffet and he feeds on each with a discerning palate, with anticipation and keen pleasure. Kurt’s utter disgust at himself in each dream where he comes helplessly while reliving his own choices make Blaine absolutely high. 

But it’s the first appearance of the faceless man, a tender dream of a new lover, that changes the game. What Kurt feels isn’t even an approximation of what Blaine feels. But this is better. The faceless lover is a blank slate. He’s a long term toy. As time progresses, Blaine can transform him. Come to Kurt as himself. Manipulate him until Kurt craves sleep every night for the pleasure and pain Blaine will bring him. 

Blaine can’t wait to break him. He didn’t save Kurt for kindness; but for hunger. 

~*~ 

In it, Kurt is nothing but sensations at first. Hazy, unspecified, but lovely. He’s touched with heartbreaking sweetness, his body’s pleasure unfurls by degrees that feel so natural he doesn’t even hesitate to give himself into that cresting peak that makes a tender wreck of his body. After, he can sense the soft cotton sheets under him, the thrilling tingle of his skin coming down, the deep throbbing ache of completion in his pelvis. 

But when Kurt reaches to touch him, there’s no one there. 

~*~ 

Blaine steals Kurt’s secrets slowly. Some nights, Blaine is shocked to come back to himself without having gotten any of what he’d gone to Kurt craving. Blaine thought Kurt was helpless to darkness; a boy broken in a way that would make him easily vulnerable. Instead, he’s left to puzzle a boy whose will makes it hard for Blaine to take easily. He watches Kurt relive incredibly painful moments: being pushed and hurt. Reliving assault and the sharp sting of words. A world that knows Kurt was being hurt, degraded, and worn down yet did nothing. Blaine can’t see what Kurt does during the day. But as nights pass, Blaine can feel that fragile ribbon of strength growing stronger. Thicker. 

When Blaine tries to steer Kurt often manages to resist or to transform Blaine’s intention into his own. His brain is a fascinating compendium of memories that weave together in patterns Blaine is unused to. When Kurt asks for kisses, heavy limbed with stunned eyes, he remembers the terror of another man’s lips forcing themselves on him. The first time that happens, Blaine comes instantly then smiles, feral and sated, into Kurt’s neck. Kurt thinks it’s the kisses, and what he feels isn’t shame or fear, but a smug, thrilling happiness at his own power. If Blaine hadn’t already come he might have been disappointed by the turn Kurt’s mind took. Kurt in dreams doesn’t let the fear he felt when the other boy assaulted him win. Instead he uses a steadfast determination to remember _these_ kisses; to overshadow pain with positivity. 

Blaine spends hours of his next day contemplating it. He’s already experienced Kurt’s initial reticence, a resistance to feeling sexy. But beneath that is a deeply sensual boy who is learning the power of his body, his eyes and fingers, at the hands of a lover he doesn’t know and hasn’t defined. While steeped in his dreams, Kurt’s burgeoning confidence tastes beautiful on Blaine’s. In daylight, Blaine yearns to turn that confidence into shame, into a wanting loathing. To make him a boy of pure desire who can’t stop himself from wanting dirty things. But when he’s in Kurt’s actual wishes, Blaine somehow finds himself swept up in Kurt’s desires. 

Blaine begins to reveal himself, his corporeal self, slowly. He plants a wishing for honey hazel eyes, for dark, curled hair, for beautifully bowed lips until Kurt can’t imagine not wanting them. He plans next steps. 

“What do you want?” he asks. 

“This,” Kurt gasps, arching his body up into Blaine’s, rolling them together. His heart wants slow, wants closeness. Blaine closes his eyes and remembers himself, then bites Kurt’s pale neck and down his chest. He’s not gentle. Blaine smiles at the trickle of pain Kurt feels; it coils in his pelvis and throbs in his cock, and Kurt’s whimper is delicious. But it wanes so quickly, the tiniest thrill of fear is quicksilver and then it becomes _good_. It’s Kurt’s trust, it’s Kurt wanting to share something unexpected. 

Again, Blaine comes before he can stop himself; dazed by the intensity of that connection. 

~*~ 

Kurt lives the next few weeks in a fog; he stumbles through his days eager for sleep. His aunt asks him if he’s okay more often than when he first came. Not because he’s mired in depression and anxiety, but because he’s so out of it. He’s clumsier than usual, which is really saying something. He has to ask his family to repeat what they’ve said several times. He forgets to do homework and chores. He drifts in daydreams and memories when he’s meant to be watching his cousins. 

It’s not ideal, but also perfect. Because Kurt can so easily lose himself like this, and that puts a distance between his fear and what he’d done. It cushions him. In more aware moments, Kurt wonders if it’s not what he needs to heal. 

“You sound good,” his dad says one night. Kurt blushes so intensely it radiates heat from his skin. 

“I feel good,” he says, then bites his hand to keep a giggle in. Thankfully his father takes it at face value. 

~*~ 

“I want to do something,” Blaine whispers in Kurt’s ear. 

“Mm?” Kurt turns from the TV. They’re on the floor surrounded by sumptuous pillows in deep jewel tones, finger foods on a tray before them. A minute ago he’d been giggling while feeding Blaine a strawberry, flushing around a shy smile when Blaine had nipped at his fingers and then given him a strawberry flavored kiss. 

“I want to try something new,” Blaine says. He kisses Kurt’s neck, then rolls on top of him, nearly upsetting the tray. 

For the first time, Kurt feels a tiny bit of disappointment. In the background Humphrey Bogart makes promises and Kurt longs for a perfect romantic date. “Maybe we could watch the movie first?” He wiggles, trying to dislodge Blaine, who is already inching his shirt up his belly. 

Blaine pulls back; his eyes are dark, darker than usual, and _fierce_. A shiver of fear rises through Kurt, but he tamps it down. This is _Blaine_. But right now Blaine’s smile is a little predatory. His nails dig into Kurt’s skin, and it almost feels hot; Kurt feels hot, flushed but also apprehensive. He tries to push Blaine away, then whimpers when Blaine kisses him because with Blaine, he’s always helpless to resist. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” Blaine whispers into his ear. “If you’re a good boy, we can watch after.” 

“Good boy?” Kurt asks. Dazed, he tries to take stock of why the words make him hard so fast he’s dizzy with it, even as anxiety curls in his stomach too. He wants but he doesn’t and he’s a little frightened. But the more he feels unsure, the more insistent Blaine’s kisses seem to be, the harder his kisses become. 

“Sit up,” Blaine says. He climbs off of Kurt and sits back on his heels. Numb, Kurt does, then his pants when Blaine nods at them. He moves automatically. “Blaine, I’m not—“ 

“Hush,” Blaine says. His mouth is smiling but his eyes aren’t. His eyes are feral. “No talking.” Kurt nods, muted. 

“Spread your legs. Touch yourself.” Kurt turns his face away and does. He doesn’t want to and feels exposed, but does. Blaine leans over and kisses him, right under his balls, and Kurt squirms with embarrassment. But it feels good. It feels amazing. Blaine’s lips and tongue explore, licking and kissing slowly down. Kurt’s skin prickles with sweat, chest heaving faster and faster as he moves in fractions against Blaine’s lips, kissing him where he never thought he’d want to be kissed. He can’t help himself. Somehow his asshole, where Blaine is now sucking hard kisses, feels hardwired to the rest of his body. His cock throbs and Kurt closes his eyes. 

When he opens them, he’s surprised to find his hands in Blaine’s hair, cracking through the gel holding his curls in place. He pushes Blaine’s face closer, then gasps an apology. Every time he tries to move away, to get some distance from Blaine’s insistent ministrations, he’s hit with another wave of pleasure he can’t disengage from. 

“ _Pleasepleaseplease,_ ” he’s chanting under his breath, unsure if he means ‘please stop’ or ‘please don’t’. He gasps and arches when Blaine’s tongue, hard and pointed, pushes into his body. _Fuck_ that’s not even a thing Kurt would think to do, that people do. 

“No,” he closes his eyes and whispers. 

Blaine turns his head and kisses Kurt’s thigh and murmures, “Are you sure you don’t mean yes?” 

Kurt stops pulling Blaine’s hair and his asshole tingles where Blaine’s mouth was. He thinks, _I want my no to mean yes to you anyway._ He covers his eyes with one hand, makes his palm moist with tears. Blaine bites the meat of his thigh and Kurt cries out and then comes so hard it hurts his cramped muscles and lip where he’s bitten it. 

When Blaine purrs, “Good boy,” Kurt finds his tears cresting just behind his orgasm, wracking his body. He rolls to his side, fingers seeking Blaine – his face or hands or arm or anything – with which to ground himself, but finds he’s alone. Utterly alone on a bare floor in a bare room, covered in come and sweat and tears, held down deep by growing shame at being degraded by pleasure. 

~*~ 

Blaine watches, invisible and smiling as Kurt curls up then begins to fade when he draws out of sleep. He closes his eyes and pulls himself back into his body. The night is deep above him, the wash of water on shore a delicate susurration. The sky is black velvet, prickling with stars, and Blaine vibrates with pleasure against the sand. 

When morning breaks, sky brightening sorbet orange over the tree line, Blaine is still on the sand. He’s exhausted from pleasure he’s brought himself to over and over. There are clouds wisping and glowing iridescent above him. But when he rolls over and looks at the beach when he’d first seen Kurt, a new feeling curls into him. He furrows his brow and works his way into the water, wondering what it is. He doesn’t have a name for it. 

He sinks into the profound silence of the water and tries to understand it. In the threading weeds he lays on the silt floor and knows he’s felt this before. The longer he thinks, the surer he is that this isn’t new. This must be something he felt as a human. He doesn’t feel those things anymore. He knows he felt happiness once, and he knows he felt overwhelming fear and loneliness. But this? 

Blaine wakes hours later; his eyes pop open suddenly and he knows. 

_Regret._

That’s the thing sitting on his chest. 

~*~ 

For the first time in weeks Kurt dreads going to bed. It feels haunted, tainted with the lingering dream. The shame he’d woken with has only deepened as the day passed. It takes on a complexity that’s almost impossible to figure out. How could he want these things? Things he never thought about before? How could he have enjoyed being pushed, his no being ignored – both by himself and by Blaine? 

Kurt shakes his head, a half smile tinged rueful curling one side of his mouth. Blaine is a dream. Blaine is a boy he’s built in dreams from pieces. But he is also very solid; he feels like a real person. Like a constant. As he’s developed from a faceless whisper of longing to a boy with a painful beauty and sweetness; from an echo of desire that had no shape into a trusted ideal, Kurt’s grown to trust him. Moments when Blaine’s been a bit rougher or more insistent have never bothered Kurt when he wakes. Because of that trust. Because even when Kurt’s felt hesitant, doing these things with Blaine served only to make him feel closer. Connected. 

Safe even. 

Kurt does not feel safe right now. 

Thankfully, Kurt is alone in dreams, unhaunted, for several days. Enough even that he comes to miss them. At least, the ones before. The ones that helped him forget everything else, that numbed and washed away the pain he’s been wrestling with. 

~*~ 

Blaine gives himself a break for one week to try to get these new feelings under control. Once he realized what he was feeling the morning after he’d pushed Kurt closer to what Blaine hungers for, more feelings began to pop up. Some he actively feels, which is weird and uncomfortable and miserable. And some he doesn’t feel but remembers. Everything is being turned, tilted and new and miserable. The last thing Blaine needs is to go to Kurt and come away even more confused and burdened. 

These feelings – these human ones – are awful. 

He watches the sky each night as the planets did their slow and inevitable sweep across the sky and tries to ignore his panic. This lake has been his station for many years. He knows this is connected to his death without a memory of why. He only knows that one day he’d come into being on this beach. He’d risen with an aching hunger. 

At first he’d fed off of anyone who came close without a thought to consequences, blindly and fiercely until his visitors dwindled. Until a group of young kids came, whispering about haunting, about a haunted lake. They’d taken pictures and laughed nervously, daring each other to wade into the waters that had become the subject of an urban legend. One girl recites statistics. How many of those who had been touched by the evil here killed themselves or went insane. 

Blaine hadn’t minded that so much. He’d even laughed smugly at first. But when he started to move in on them it hit him: without care or forethought he’d driven his own prey away. If he wasn’t mindful the consequences would be catastrophic. When no one came, the hunger he’d risen with became agonizing, wracking his body and consuming his mind. 

Despite his hunger that day, Blaine had swum back out into the lake and tried to combat it. From that point forward, he needed to be more careful. He needed to find a way to feed without frightening people away and alerting them to what was so wrong here. 

He knew he could possess people, come to them in dreams and in that sense of deja vu that washed over their bodies and inconvenient times, leaving them afraid and unsure. Knowing this, Blaine devised a plan. He’d honed it over years that became decades. After a while his beach and lake became more populated with visitors. He made himself stay with victims for longer, until a newer, shiner toy came along. He learned to live with the increased hunger until it was almost like white noise, always there but nothing urgent enough to break him. 

But after a week without Kurt that white noise has turned up, like someone is turning a fan to higher settings. Blaine has gone longer without feeding in the past, but this has become impossible to ignore.This desire is not only to feed, but for _Kurt_. Blaine’s spent the week trying to shore up a wall between his self and feelings he doesn’t want. Once he thinks he’s managed, he goes straight to Kurt. He finds himself inside a dream of Kurt’s peers singing. He hovers for a bit, trying to think of an unobtrusive way to lure Kurt from this dream – he doesn’t want to push Kurt hard enough to turn the dream into a nightmare Kurt might wake himself from before Blaine gets a chance with him. 

He waits scant minutes before it happens. Kurt, sitting in a plastic chair next to a beautiful girl with dark skin and a bright smile, begins to sing. They all do, falling into almost perfect harmonies. From the door of a classroom Blaine watches transfixed. Details begin to sharpen and Kurt’s dream deepens. Details fill in; the image of the classroom and the faces of the other kids. Kurt laughs, takes the girl’s hand and pulls her down the steps. Everyone rises and begins to dance. They dance without self consciousness, some much better than others, but without any judgment for the ones who seemed hopeless. In particular an incredibly tall and handsome boy who seems to have no idea how to match the strength of his steady voice with his too tall body. 

Blaine forgets himself and allows their happiness wash over him. In Kurt’s dream, when he sings, others stop to listen. He sings with confidence, with a knowledge of the power his voice is capable off. He sings in a voice so unique Blaine finds himself wishing he could hear it over and over. 

Too soon, before Blaine can grasp onto Kurt, everything goes dim and Kurt slips away from him completely. Blaine curses, coming to on the beach. Somewhere, Kurt is waking with happiness and comfort and Blaine is left here, hungry and hurting. 

~*~ 

Blaine is on Kurt’s bed. He’s dressed beautifully, an homage to a fifties look Kurt very much likes. He’s toying with Blaine’s bowtie, tracing over the tiny anchors embroidered there and then tickling his fingers up over Blaine’s ear. Blaine smiles, but it’s a strange one. Strained. His eyes are soft but a little scared. Kurt kisses Blaine’s cheekbone. 

“Are you alright?” Kurt asks. He kisses the corner of Blaine’s mouth and nudges himself closer. The affection he feels is like absolution. 

“I don’t know,” Blaine responds and frowns. He shakes his head, closes his eyes and takes Kurt’s hand. “Come here.” He tries to pull Kurt on top of him but Kurt resists. What he wants, strong and sure, is to lay here quietly and lose himself in the warm greens and browns of Blaine’s irises. 

“No,” he says. He speaks gently. “Just let me hold you for a bit.” The compassion Kurt hasn’t been able to offer himself is very clear in his body; he has it in spades for Blaine. He wants Blaine to feel it. Blaine closes his eyes and sags against the mattress, then allows Kurt to tuck his face into the hollow of his neck. He acquiesces. Kurt runs his hand up and down Blaine’s back unerringly. 

~*~ 

“Please don’t,” Blaine begs the next night. Kurt’s kissing him so tenderly, his face and below his ear and his neck. His fingers are gentle on Blaine’s stomach, under the shirt he’s imagined Kurt would like. 

“Don’t what?” Kurt asks. His lips shine and his eyes are bright. 

“Don’t be so nice to me,” Blaine whispers. This time when he pulls Kurt over him, Kurt comes. Kurt is heavy on him, and it’s new. Blaine never wants this. He likes the dominance of being on top, the feeling of control when his body is on theirs. 

“Blaine,” Kurt says and it’s so compassionate and full of worry that Blaine just can’t. He can’t. 

“I don’t need you to be gentle. I need you to make me forget.” It slips out without of Blaine without him knowing he was going to say it. He doesn’t understand his own inner conflict: he wants to forget the feelings Kurt draws from him. But he knows that being with Kurt makes them inevitable, and his body wants. He _wants._

And he does. For the first time Blaine remembers, he lets go of every intention he had. He doesn’t only let Kurt take him, he wants it. He gives up control easily. Kurt is very tender and thorough. He touches Blaine everywhere; kisses even the most unexpected parts of Blaine’s body in human form. Behind his knees and the crook of his elbow. His back and sacrum and the arches of his feet. He takes Blaine very carefully into his mouth and when Blaine begins to cry, threads their fingers together. 

The tears are awful, they’re something Blaine’s never done. He can’t control them and he can’t put a finger on why he’s crying, only that once he starts he can’t stop. When he begins to shake with them, Kurt pulls away and it leaves him cold. Cold and unsure and untethered. 

“Don’t stop,” Blaine whispers, hating the edge of begging in his voice. Not enough to stop himself though. From speaking or feeling or remaining in Kurt’s dreams. “Please.” 

Kurt kisses him, little nips and licks, his tongue barely flickering into his mouth. It’s teasing but kind. He wraps a hand around Blaine’s dick and looks deep into Blaine’s eyes as he brings Blaine to orgasm, drawing his need higher and tighter and closer. He doesn’t ask for anything in return; dazed as he is, Blaine doesn’t think he could even offer. He can’t bring himself to touch Kurt in a way that’s harmful, and for the first time, he realizes that coming to Kurt wanting to hurt him is very, very wrong. 

Blaine stays in the dream as long as he can. He can’t hold Kurt in a dream when his body wakes on it’s own. He doesn’t move and he lets Kurt hold him without speaking. Kurt leaves them both in silence. Not to harm, but to help Blaine in some way he just knows to do. 

~*~ 

Kurt wakes with the taste of Blaine’s pain in this mouth, wrapped around his heart. The act of comforting him and the knowledge that there is a part of his heart that has so much compassion and kindness is empowering. 

The thing is, Kurt has forgotten his own heart. In his pain and in the wake of what felt for a long time like torture, Kurt has erased so much of himself. Hated himself even: for everything he didn’t know how to or had no power over or to control. But today he feels it. The smiles that Anna and Charlie give him when he sits on the floor and plays board games with them for an hour mean love, mean they value and want him with them. When he helps Aunt Ruth make dinner, cracking her up with his running commentary on the television shows he’s watched and the fashions people think are fashion but are really disasters, Kurt glows with happiness. 

“I love you.” It’s the first thing Kurt says when his dad picks up the phone. 

“I love you too?” his dad says, clearly unsure what’s going on. “Not to beat a dead horse, but are you okay?” 

“I’m good. I’m really good.” Kurt says. “Today was a really good day.” 

He can hear his father breathing down the line as he pauses. “I’m happy to hear that,” his dad says. “Wanna tell me what happened today?” 

“I don’t know,” Kurt says. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I woke up this morning and I knew it was going to be a great day.” He can’t tell his father how he feels unencumbered by the depression that’s been drowning him. Or how although he can’t erase the memory of what he’d done, even when he tries to bury it and lose himself in this fantasy world his brain has been constructing, he’s somehow learning to manage it. 

~*~ 

Under Blaine’s cheek the sand grates, gritty edges uncomfortable. He brushes it away and sits carefully. He’s dizzy, and his eyes feel dry. Wonderingly, Blaine touches the skin under one and realizes he’s been crying. 

He didn’t know he was capable of crying. The morning is vast, and in it his memories of Kurt shout like a booming voice in an empty room. Worse yet, that emptiness without Kurt leaves him lonely. 

_I’m lonely._

Blaine sits with that for a few seconds. For the first time, he doesn’t have to try to figure out a new sensation. He just feels it. The birds begin to chatter good morning at the cusp of dawn. He doesn’t want to see it so he turns toward the water; out of his peripheral vision he sees the rocks where he loves to sit when he’s in the mood for the sun. Where he most often does his daydreaming, stretching a languorous body with memories of pleasure and pain. 

They look different. Curious, he swims to them, and as he puts a hand out to pull himself up. 

And then he remembers. 

Blaine pulls himself up onto the rocks, dripping, breath catching. His face is wet from the water, but even without touching his face, Blaine knows that he’s crying again. Soon enough his chest is heaving and his sobs echo across the water with the sound of the world waking. 

~*~ 

“The summer is almost over,” Burt says. “We’re still working on saving money here. I’m sorry though, because we just can’t pay for Dalton yet. What do you want—“ 

“I want to come home,” Kurt says, surprising himself with the strength of his words. “I want to come home and I want to go back to school with my friends.” 

“Bud you know we can’t let you go where you’re not safe.” 

“What if we talked to Principal Figgins again?” Kurt asks. “We could call David’s parents into a meeting?” 

“Kurt, this is a big deal. Do you think a meeting with the boy that threatened to kill you will make you somehow safe?” 

Kurt swallows disappointment and thinks of his father’s words. “Can we at least think about it?” Kurt begs. “I don’t know how to explain this. But today I really thought about it down at the beach while Anna and Charlie were swimming. And I don’t think—“ 

“What?” 

“I don’t think he’ll actually hurt me. I think he’s just scared. He has secrets to keep of his own, and I think he’s in pain.” 

His dad sighs. “You never could walk away from someone who’s hurting. But Kurt, you have to think of yourself. Your safety.” 

“I know Dad,” Kurt says, and he does. In the last few days he’s been thinking about this, realizing how many ways he needs to shore himself up. Honor himself and put his own safety and well being ahead. 

“You miss your friends,” his dad says. “I get that. And I know you want to go back. But…” 

“Just think about it,” Kurt says again. “We could call a meeting and if it doesn’t go well, I’ll come back here. Or something. Please Dad. _Please._ ” 

“Okay,” his dad says. The reluctance in his voice worries Kurt. 

“It’s not just school and my friends I miss, you know.” 

“Kurt, we miss you too. So much.” 

“So--?” 

His dad laughs. “Always stubborn. Just like your mom.” 

“Not just her.”. 

“Yeah well you are a Hummel.” Kurt holds his tongue through the silence, holding the phone tight enough to hurt his fingers. 

“We’ll think about it. I’ll call Figgins and see if he will.” 

“Thank you,” Kurt bounces a little on the bed. “Thank you, thank you.” 

“Save it kiddo. This isn’t a yes.” 

“I know,” Kurt says. “But I’ll take a maybe for now.” 

~*~ 

“Kurt?” Blaine whispers. 

“Hm?” Kurt pauses the T.V. and rolls over to look at him. 

“Will you come somewhere with me?” 

Kurt looks out the window. It was evening when Blaine came but it’s morning now. That makes no sense. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Blaine turns Kurt’s chin toward him with two cold fingers. “There’s something I need to show you.” 

“Alright, I guess?” Kurt stands and pulls a cardigan out for himself, and looking over at Blaine, one for him. The damp mornings have begun to chill as summer closes out. Blaine takes it but doesn’t put it on. Instead he holds it up to his nose and inhales. Kurt smiles broadly and wishes he could kiss Blaine back into his bed. But he lets Blaine lead them out of the house and onto a beach. 

“How did we—“ Kurt looks around. The sun is above them and the forest has already faded away behind them. 

“Come here,” Blaine tilts his head toward a group of large boulders that are surrounded by marsh and water. 

“There?” Kurt points, and pulls back when Blaine nods. “That’s...I’m not dressed for…” 

“Kurt,” Blaine whispers. “This is important.” He kisses Kurt long and tender. Against Kurt’s cheek the wind kicks up. He pulls away when the wind tosses sand against him. The sky is a familiar turbulent. Kurt feels sick, sick and too close to the memory of the day he’d come here to end everything. 

“Blaine I don’t think I can be here – this is too hard. I should tell—“ 

“That’s why we’re here,” Blaine says. He squeezes Kurt’s hand. “I want to tell you something. Please let me. You need to know.” 

Kurt closes his eyes and tries to calm his heart, which is beating so fast he can’t catch his breath. Suddenly he’s on the rocks. Water splashes up the whole length of his leg; the rock under his butt is wet from the turbulent waves frothing with wind, portent of a storm. 

“I know what happened to you here,” Blaine says. Kurt squints into the wind and looks away from him. “And I need to tell you what happened to me here.” 

“What--?” Kurt whips his head around, recoiling so fast he almost ends up in the water because Blaine…isn’t Blaine at all. “Oh my god what—what are you?” He turns and tries to find a way off of the rocks, but Blaine’s hand is on his. It’s cold and a bit slimy and…blue. It’s blue, as is the rest of his body. Scaled slightly down to what is actually, honest to god, _a tail_. The darker it gets the more Blaine seems to brighten, almost as if he’s glowing. Kurt tries to swallow his terror, to keep his movements small so he can figure out how to get away from this. 

When he looks up, Blaine’s face terrifically beautiful in a horrible way; eyes preternaturally bright, hair a wild mess the wind fingers and tosses. Kurt’s mouth is dry with fear, and the more he looks at Blaine the more powerless he is to it. 

“Kurt,” Blaine’s voice is just as he knows it. Soft and rich. “I need you to see me like this. I want you to know the consequences.” 

“Wh-what are y-y-ou going t-t do to me?” Kurt clenches his jaw to try to stop their chattering. 

“I’m not going to hurt you. Please try to trust me.” 

Kurt pulls his hand away and folds it on his lap. He thinks of all the times he’s trusted Blaine, and also of the time’s Blaine has scared him, the time he hurt him. He shakes his head and peeks over at the thing next to him. It’s not Blaine, it’s _not_. Only it is, a little. His posture. His voice. And despite their chilling brilliance, the way his eyes look at Kurt. 

“What consequences?” Kurt says. His lips are numb. When Blaine makes a move to reach for him, Kurt scoots away and shakes his head. One leg is in the water, up to his knee and it’s cold. But the boots he’d pulled on when they left aren’t on them anymore; nothing is. He’s bare. But not because Blaine’s put a blanket around him. Kurt closes his eyes and when he opens them, the lake is calm. The water is glass topped and the sun beats mercilessly against their skin. The blanket is oppressive but he’s naked beneath it and he’d rather sweat than expose himself. 

“You know, Kurt,” Blaine sounds almost amused, “there’s nothing you haven’t shown me already.” 

Kurt refuses to look at him again. Maybe if he just listens to Blaine’s voice, it will be like none of this is happening, because it’ll be so familiar. 

“I know what you did,” Blaine whispers. “Only unlike me you didn’t manage it.” 

“What?” Kurt squints at him. “Wait—I don’t. But you--?” Shaking his head he takes a breath. “This is the strangest—Is this a dream? This is all a dream isn’t it?” 

“Yes.” Blaine’s fingers touch Kurt’s. “But also no.” 

“What?” 

“I’m real,” Blaine says. “I’m real and what I’m about going to tell you is absolutely real.” 

“But…it _is_ a dream?” Kurt ventures. 

“Every time we’ve been together, you’ve been dreaming. But I haven’t.” 

Kurt looks at Blaine. “What are you talking about? This makes no sense. I want to go.” 

Blaine shifts, uncomfortable. Clears his throat. “Please don’t make me make you stay.” 

“You can do that?” 

“I can do all number of horrible things,” he admits. “But Kurt…I really don’t want to. I called you here for a reason. Because I need to tell you this.” 

Kurt makes himself swallow and tries to regulate his breathing, tame his fear. “Well then tell me. And then let me go.” 

Blaine looks at him; his eyes are fathomless. Chilling and heartbreaking. 

“In 1952, I was sixteen years old--” 

“--what the fuck?” 

“Please just let me tell it all,” Blaine begs. Kurt nods, head reeling. 

“I was sixteen and healing. Well, my body was. I’d been stupid. I let myself get caught kissing a boy. I don’t remember who he was. A lot of stuff is kind of murky. Because I’d forgotten.” He shrugs and bites his lip and looks out over the water. “But I remember them hitting me. They’d waited for me to come out of school from choir practice. Dragged me behind where the garbage was. They…they beat me. Hard. Broke my nose and my arm. When they were done, they spit on me. Called me a dirty faggot the whole time.” 

Kurt hugs himself, hard and blinks hard. 

“Of course I never told anyone why they did it. I never told _who_ did it. I guess I hoped that by keeping their secrets, they might keep mine.” They sit in a long pause as Blaine lets Kurt digest his words. “But it never left me. I couldn’t let go of the fear. I never knew where they might be. If one day they’d go too far. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t breath some days. And worse, they’d broken me somehow. Their disgust became mine until I hated myself…” Blaine swallows. “I remember hating myself so much, it was like another being inside myself. And…and I thought it would never end. Back then, I would have told you I _knew_ it would never end.” 

Kurt looks at him then, steadily. His lashes are clumped with tears and he finds he’s breathing in tempo with Blaine, as if they’re going through this recollection with the same sense of horror and familiarity. And really, aren’t they? 

“So I came here. I came here with a specific plan. I put rocks in my clothes. In my shoes. I didn’t know how to swim, but I managed to get out enough. The wind helped--” Blaine lifts his hand and the wind picks up, blowing west fiercely, changing the chop of the water. It’s amazing. 

“How did you—“ 

“Dream, remember?” Blaine says with a small smile. He takes a breath and gathers more words Kurt wants to beg him not to speak. He can’t hear this. It’s so close, but when he thinks of his Blaine – not this terrible, unearthly beautiful creature – he wants to beg him to stop. 

“It didn’t take long. And it was nothing I thought it would be. I read that drowning was not a bad way to do it. But just before the end when the water was closing over my head, I realized I didn’t want to. I tried—“ Blaine dashes tears off his face, and examines his fingers as if he’s never seen tears before. “But it was too late.” 

“Blaine--” Kurt chokes out through a throat so thick with tears it hurts. 

“I didn’t know this Kurt. I didn’t remember any of this for years and years. Not until you.” His eyes are burning again, glowing in the dim brought by an evening storm. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I don’t want to tell you everything. Maybe I won’t have to. But…what I did and do remember most was waking up here. The sun was shining and I was hungry. And not for food.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Kurt I don’t know what this is--” Blaine gestures to his body. “I barely remembered that I had a human life and I really didn’t care. People were interesting toys and I am a terrible, terrible thing.” He looks down, smoothing fingers over iridescent scales. “Well, I was.” 

Kurt doesn’t say anything. There isn’t anything for him to say. 

“I don’t know what happens now. I can’t do what I was doing and I don’t think this will ever end. For decades I thought this was a gift. Because I didn’t know,” he repeats. “But I know now. This is my punishment. Or my fate. Something. And I’m going to have to figure out how to—or if I can stop…how to stop living---“ 

“Blaine, wait—“ 

“No Kurt, don’t. I didn’t bring you here to talk about this. I came here to talk about _you_.” 

Kurt swallows and tilts his chin, drawing himself up. “I don’t know that we need to--“ 

“No, we _do_.” 

Kurt looks over the treeline which dances madly in confused winds and jumps when lighting lights them. He blinks away the blinding light that echoes behind his eyelids. 

“Kurt, close your eyes and count to ten. Please.” Blaine’s voice is so soft in the rising storm Kurt can hardly hear it. But he does. And when he opens them they’re in the woods. Droplets of leftover rain fall on them through the leaves. When Kurt looks up he can see that the sun is shining. The underside of the leaves glow a bright green. Everything is hushed. It feels sacred. In front of him is Blaine. The Blaine he knows – a handsome, sometimes sweet boy. A dream. The epitome of every one of Kurt’s romantic dreams. 

“Kurt, you need to remember your own choices,” Blaine says, and it’s terrible. Kurt shakes his head and hugs himself. “Please. Because I need you to remember what you felt like at that very last moment. Do you?” 

“Maybe,” Kurt says softly. “Mostly I just remember waking up. And wondering how I got there.” 

“I know,” Blaine admits. “I know what you were feeling. I knew from the moment I first saw you. I watched you and I waited for you every day.” 

“Why?” Kurt frowns. Blaine looks away. 

“That’s a conversation for another day really. I promise, if you want to know down the road we can talk about it. But that’s not important right now.” 

“You saved me, didn’t you?” 

Blaine looks up from the shoelace he’s toying with. Kurt realizes it’s his. He’s dressed again and his boot is half untied from Blaine playing with it. He wants to hold his hand. He wants to feel anchored to something if he’s going to have to face this. Blaine takes a breath and shakes himself. Whatever he’s thinking of passes briefly over him. But when Kurt threads their fingers together, he smiles. Blaine’s eyes, back to the hazle Kurt has learned so well, shimmer with tears. 

“I did.” 

“But not for a good reason?” Kurt puzzles. 

“No, not at first. But…” 

“But?” 

“Kurt…the point is that when you went under the water, you felt this fear…it was so much bigger than any of the fear you’d been feeling before. It was fear crying for the life you were throwing away. Because you knew at that second that you were making a mistake.” 

“Yes,” Kurt whispers. 

“I remember that now,” Blaine says. He leans in and kisses Kurt’s cheek. “I remember being sixteen and now I’m remembering what it felt like to be happy. I remember the rightness in my bones when I had my first kiss, and I remember the hope I had for some sort of life. Before they beat that hope and joy out of me.” 

“Yes,” Kurt says, because he too remembers this. “Well,” he smiles tremulously at Blaine, “but without the first kiss part.” 

“But you’ll get it,” Blaine says fiercely. “You have a whole life ahead of you. And I know that what you’re feeling, and what you felt, seems so much bigger than hope. Maybe you can’t even feel that. You feel like you have to live for them, for your family and friends. You are willing to be a shell, to go through motions, just to protect them from heartbreak.” 

“I know now that I couldn’t do that to my father.” 

“No, Kurt,” Blaine insists. “You can’t do that to _yourself._ Don’t throw it away. One day, you’re going to find it for yourself. You’ll find your first kiss. You’ll experience so much happiness. You’ll experience heartbreak that others can heal. That will only serve to make the best things that come after even better.” 

“Blaine I don’t—“ 

“Please Kurt,” Blaine begs, “Please trust me on this. I…” Blaine’s lip trembles, then curls as he begins to cry in earnest. Kurt pulls him forward until he’s half on Kurt’s lap, crying into his neck. “I’ll never have that. I threw that all away, and now I know. And now I have to exist always knowing there was a whole life ahead of me that I gave away.” 

Blaine’s hair is scratchy with gel under Kurt’s cheek, but it smells delicate, fruity and familiar. His chest is tight and his tears fall into Blaine’s hair. The weight of another person’s life – someone young and full of promise – thrown away is utterly heartbreaking. He can see it clearly when it is not his own, when he’s not encumbered with the mire of emotions that almost carried him -- and that did carry Blaine -- into a too early end. 

“Kurt, whatever my intentions were when I saved you, I want you to know, without hope for anything from you, and without deception, that I have come to love you.” 

“Blaine…” Kurt hiccups and wipes tears from his cheeks. “This is a dream.” He repeats it to himself again, more softly. 

“But not to me.” Blaine pulls back and cups Kurt’s cheek. “I come to you in dreams. This, for me, is so real. The most real now that I know myself. And what I have here,” he puts a hand on his own chest. “I love you. And if I were a real boy, and I were here with you, I would be making you so many promises.” 

“Oh god,” Kurt closes his eyes. “I can’t…I can’t—“ he struggles to stand. 

“No, please don’t go yet,” Blaine begs. He holds Kurt’s hand and holds down the urge to make him stay. Kurt sits and looks him in the eye. “Kurt, please…when you go home, and when you face everything you want to face, please remember that a better life is on your horizon.” 

“I told myself that for months Blaine,” Kurt whispers. 

“I know,” Blaine risks touching Kurt then, just his fingers. “And you’re strong. You’re so much stronger than you know. And you’re going home. When you do…when things are hard and seem hopeless…would you remember me? Think of the life I wish so much I hadn’t thrown away. Of all the things I won’t ever have that you will.” 

“Oh Blaine,” Kurt bows his head. His shoulders shake. “Is this what you were like, then?” He gestures to Blaine’s body. 

“Yes,” Blaine sniffles and smiles. “In the flesh.” 

“You…” Kurt starts. He tilts his head. “You were very handsome. You were a very sweet boy, weren’t you?” 

“I think,” Blaine struggles to remember. “I think I had a lot of love to give, and I think that not having anyone to give it to was the worst for me. I’ve seen your friends and family in your dreams. I’ve felt through you their love and yours. You have the love and support you need, Kurt, when you go home. You don’t have to do it alone. Their hearts are open to yours. And in your heart you know it, because I can see that.” 

Kurt shakes his head. 

“If I can see they mean it Kurt,” Blaine continues, “then you know that they do. It’s just buried deep.” 

Kurt takes a deep breath, and then looks into Blaine’s eyes. He holds Blaine’s gaze for a very long time. The forest has begun to wake as the storm moves farther away, chirping and buzzing around them. 

“Do I have to say goodbye to you?” 

“I don’t know. Selfishly, I don’t want you to. But I think it might be best for you, in the end.” 

Blaine struggles to keep his eyes dry. His selfish fear of being left alone now, of being left by Kurt in a life he has no power to control, no hope for change or love or forgiveness – it will only hurt Kurt to know about. 

“I don’t want—“ Kurt starts. 

“Would you kiss me?” Blaine blurts. “I know you might not want to, with everything you saw—“ Kurt’s mouth is hot on his. It’s gentle, but not timid. His hands cup Blaine’s face and when Blaine lays back his body is a comforting weight. He’s smaller than Kurt and like this Kurt blocks everything in the outside world from penetrating the bubble they create when they’re together. Where they only need to think of each other. 

But in his arms, Kurt is becoming intangible. 

“What?” Kurt shakes his head. Blaine just smiles, a small and pained one, as he looks at Kurt’s beautiful face. 

“When you wake up,” he whispers, “will you always remember that I love you?” 

“This is not goodbye,” Kurt says firmly. Blaine doesn’t say anything – instead he tries to capture one last kiss but Kurt’s already slipped into waking, leaving Blaine utterly alone, cold on the rocks where he was born. 

~*~ 

Kurt wakes with tears wracking his chest, with a pain so huge he can’t control his reaction. He rolls over and curls up and hugs it to his chest. 

“Kurt,” Aunt Ruth comes into the room, “honey what’s wrong? Are you okay?” But Kurt can’t answer her, can’t get himself under control. She sits next to him and lays her hand on his head tentatively. Helplessly needing connection and comfort he scoot so his face presses against her leg and lets her run fingers gently through his hair while she hums something soothing. After a bit, when his sobs have slowed so that he can breathe properly, he recognizes it as a song his mother used to sing him to sleep with. 

“Aunt Ruth,” he says through a tear shredded throat. “Can my dad come? Can you ask him to come please?” 

“What happened?” she asks him urgently. “Are you hurt? Kurt honey—“ 

“I’m not hurt. Not really. I just…there are things I need to talk to him about. I need him here.” He tries not to beg. 

“Okay,” she urges him down against the pillows, fluffs them and pulls his blanket up. “I don’t want to leave you alone.” 

“It’s fine,” he assures her. A deep lethargy has settled in his bones and while he knows that tears are rarely held at bay, the panic and heartbreak that had woken him seem more manageable. She kisses him and slips out of the room. Kurt hugs a pillow to himself and tries not to think too hard about what comes next. In the hall he hears the quiet murmur of her voice. The door creaks open a bit and he sees Anna’s face peep in. Kurt wipes his face quickly and tries to smile. But before he can ask her for some space, she’s hopped into bed with him. She wraps her arms around his neck and doesn’t say anything. Kurt closes his eyes, and before he knows it, Charlie is settling into the bed next to him. He snuggles up to Kurt’s back and puts one hand on Kurt’s arm. 

“We love you,” Anna says around a small yawn. Kurt hums and nods and because they aren’t looking, allows a few tears. They drip from his face onto the pillow. Everything hurts, but here, with proof of people who love Kurt just for being him, for being in their lives, holds him together. 

~*~ 

Blaine hasn’t slept. It mostly doesn’t matter; maybe because he doesn’t let himself notice. He’s sat on his rocks for hours contemplating the water. Wondering what the world has in store for him. If he will be able to come to Kurt when he leaves, and if he even wants to. No matter how much Blaine loves him, he will always tie Kurt to place and time where he’d given up. He’ll always be the monster who preyed on a helpless boy to satisfy dark hunger. 

Blaine would rather starve right now than do that ever again. He doesn’t know what it is his power to control though. He’s never tested himself, he’s never questioned his place in this life. He’s enjoyed it; the thrill of destroying pretty boys was the sweetest, most intoxicating drug. 

When Kurt appears on the shore, his presence catches Blaine off guard. He was so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t felt Kurt coming. He slips behind the rocks so Kurt can’t see him and watches. Kurt scans the water and the rocks. He contemplates his clothes and Blaine has to laugh. He knows Kurt is thinking of swimming out to the rocks, but that he also hadn’t planned for it. 

“Blaine,” he whispers. “Please. Can you hear me?” 

Blaine closes his eyes because he can. He can hear him and feel him and his own body straining toward Kurt. It’s the reverse of Blaine’s ability. Because Blaine can call people to him, sing them in toward their own destruction. But Kurt – it’s the power of his love that tethers them together. 

Kurt sighs and sits on the beach. He’s resigned but persistent. He watches the clouds for a while, and eventually he begins to sing. It’s the first time outside of dreams that Blaine has heard him sing, and when Kurt sings the words _somewhere only we know,_ Blaine realizes that this is probably some sort of goodbye. 

He slides into the water, knowing that resistance is silly at this point. In reality, Blaine cannot appear as anything but himself. He knows how to hide himself easily, but if seen, he can never be anything but what he is. 

He pulls himself onto the shore by Kurt. His heart is in his throat, so much so that he cannot speak. He knows that he is terrifying but breathtaking. He wishes that he could be anything but himself. 

Kurt startles when he sees him and draws in. 

“Sorry,” Blaine croaks. “I can’t- unless it’s in dreams, I can’t be different.” 

Kurt looks at him for a long time. To get used to him, or to calm fear, or to plan his escape – Blaine has no idea. Kurt’s emotions are a mess and Blaine can’t grasp one – because Kurt can’t. 

“I don’t want you to be,” Kurt says at last. Calm settles over him, and stunningly, compassion and warmth. “I wanted to see you, once. Before--“ Kurt looks away. 

“Before you go?” Blaine says. He tries to keep his words gentle. To radiate acceptance. He wants to beg, and he wants to say something that might ease the way his heart seems to be rending. 

“I talked to my father. He came down. I told him everything.” 

Blaine swallows. “I’m…that’s so brave. I’m proud of you.” Kurt looks up at him, surprised. “I learned early on that you are incredibly strong. You’d just forgotten it.” 

Kurt worries his lip, then nods. “I think you’re right.” He takes a breath and then tentatively moves closer, as if he’s afraid Blaine might retreat. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way. Um,” Blaine looks up at the sky, and then down to Kurt’s eyes, which are the same blue today. “I…I hope you’ve come to say goodbye?” 

Kurt’s face folds into sadness. 

“Please don’t cry,” Blaine begs. “Please know I want to be with you. I don’t want to be left alone, and I can’t…I don’t know how to leave you either. But you’ll never move on fully—“ 

“No Blaine. It won’t be like that. You are the person who brought me to life.” Kurt puts his hand on Blaine’s and doesn’t flinch at the texture of it. 

“I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know if I can stay with you when you go, if I have the ability.” 

“I know.” Kurt nods. “But if you can, won’t you please?” 

Blaine knows better, but can’t act better. “Yes.” But only for as long as Kurt needs him. He knows that once Kurt really moves on, Blaine must leave. 

“What will happen to you?” Kurt asks. He looks around, at a lake and forest that are as much a part of Blaine as his heart and mind. “When I leave?” 

“I honestly don’t know,” Blaine says. 

“But it will hurt,” Kurt guesses. 

_It already does_. Blaine shakes his head and holds himself back. He wants to kiss Kurt. Wants to carry the memory of Kurt here, in his waking world, touching him with love for one last time. 

“I don’t know,” he whispers. They don’t speak, but look. Blaine tries to memorize everything about Kurt. His sweet freckles and his unpredictable eyes. His hair, a brown that might be ordinary on anyone else, but on this beautiful boy is stunning. 

“Blaine,” Kurt says softly. “Before I go…can I—“ he takes a breath and shakes his head, and then before Blaine has a chance to brace himself, kisses him. Blaine knows it’s different. He’s not the Blaine Kurt has touched countless times in dreams. Kurt’s skin is fever against him, but his lips are familiar. Kurt’s breath is sweet against Blaine’s cold skin, and his fingers, when they caress his cheek, are so alive. 

Kurt breaks away after a moment, eyes down. Blaine holds his breath. When Kurt looks back up though, they aren’t filled with disgust, but tears. 

“I love you too,” Kurt says, with a smile and a voice rich with pain. 

“You love me,” Blaine says over and over, whispering the words to hold them close even as Kurt’s hand slips from his. 

“I promise to do it Blaine,” Kurt says into his ear. “I promise to live. I promise to love you, no matter what.” 

Blaine takes a shuddering breath, and drowns all but the sound of his own voice chanting _I love you_ , over and over, and Kurt’s ragged breaths as he stands and runs back into the forest. 

.


End file.
